Even Karl Rove agrees that Republicans blundered on the payroll tax issue. They may be right “on principle and on policy“, as Charles Krauthammer puts it, but they’ve “lost the optics”, as Rove contends.
This has been a rare victory for the president due in large part to a divided GOP. “Republicans,” write the editors of the Wall Street Journal
have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he’s spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.
House Republicans yesterday voted down the Senate’s two-month extension of the two-percentage-point payroll tax holiday to 4.2% from 6.2%. They say the short extension makes no economic sense, but then neither does a one-year extension. No employer is going to hire a worker based on such a small and temporary decrease in employment costs, as this year’s tax holiday has demonstrated. The entire exercise is political, but Republicans have thoroughly botched the politics.
Indeed. And as Ed Morrissey has pointed out, the payroll tax issue has helped the incumbent in public opinion polls:
In short, Obama has rebounded slightly in job approval, but has had no real change on the economy and job creation. His pursuit of the payroll tax cut extension has clearly helped him gain some middle-class credibility in the last six weeks, something Republicans should keep in mind, but we’re not looking at a major rebound as long as Obama remains as underwater on the economy as this poll shows.
Fascinating how Obama has achieved this rebound by co-opting a traditionally Republican issue, lower tax rates.
The real question is whether he can sustain the bounce. Given the president’s low numbers on the economy and job creation (that Morrissey) cites, that doesn’t seem likely. And are there other Republican issues the Democrat will be willing to co-opt should, as most predict, the economy remains sluggish?
Then also there’s the issue of depriving the Social Security system of its funding (which comes through the payroll tax). As Conn Carroll reports in the Washington Examiner:
After Senate Republicans split on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Ky., payroll bill, Politico reported: “The reality is that many conservatives hate the payroll tax cut — they think it’s a band aid approach and takes money away from Social Security.”
Can you imagine how Democrats would squawk had Republicans been the first to propose cutting the tax which funds this popular federal program? Still, Carroll doesn’t think this is a winning issue for Republicans:
But the Social Security objection makes zero sense politicaly or policy-wise. And yet, we have good conservatives like Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ari., opposing the payroll rate cut because, “you’re draining the trust fund, you’re hastening the insolvency of Social Security.”
Whatever the case, the optics of this have not been good for the House GOP, but they have been great for the Democratic White House ever eager to promote a confrontation. All that said, the president got his bounce by co-opting a Republican issue.
He still has put forward no plans to address the burgeoning federal deficit — or to reform underfunded entitlements. Indeed, if anything, his latest tax plan makes both problems worse.
This is a tempest in a teapot… come Nov 2012, no one will remember.
And I think V said this before me, but… if Obama really thinks tax cuts are a good idea (or at least no problem), then why did he / the Democrats derail the Super Committee a few weeks ago, demanding tax increases?
Can we just admit it’s time to fire the republican leadership?
Please, I need help comprehending this.
The Dems want to extend the “tax cuts” for two months.
The Reps want to make it for a full year. (That would be SIX times longer.)
How does that make the Republicans snookered by the crafty Dems?
I know all about the pipeline and the social security short fall, etc.
Why, oh why, can’t the Republicans start screaming that the Democrats are unwilling to cut taxes for a full 12 months and they are only posturing and being duplicitous and value their vacations time over what is good for the little man and blah, blah, blah?
I really wouldn’t be overly concerned yet. The primary poll used to suggest the POTUS is having a “slight rebound” consisted of 38% dems, 25% repubs, and the rest our so called moderates. We all know that the mods on ballance lean left – so – the poll was rigged.
Repubs have been screaming, but name for me a mainstream media entity that gives them any air time. They are just going to have to grow a pair and find some other soap boxes to scream from because as we close in on November 2012 it is going to get worse. Over the past two days Rush has pretty much outlined this event, and has admonished his audiance to not FALL into the trap the drive by media is setting for us as witnessed in the title of this post. POTUS is NOT staging a rebound – the media just wants us to think he is and for us to go away!!!
I wouldn’t worry about this at all. Only political junkies are paying attention and know the nuances of the situaition. People that will be convinced Obama is a tax cutter are the drones that will vote for him regardless. There’s plenty of time after the holidays to go after him on these things and to call his bluff. All these polls with respect to Obama are absolutely meaningless nevermind slanted to the left.
This is a false tax cut debate in the first place; the Senate made the tax cut for only 2 months which is not workable in the real world. By November 2012, this will be nothing as all the tax increases within ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, Porkulus & the EPA regulations are more obvious. This is really a sideshow.
I see Obama’s slight bump as a dead cat bounce; his numbers remain underwater for the same reasons as before: It’s the economy stupid!
Why aren’t the Republicans out there screaming that Obama is a threat to Social Security?
Because the payroll tax cut does threaten Social Security.
Boehner needs to go as Speaker of the House though. We need a Tea Party Republican in his place.
Boehner’s lack of spine makes me want to cry – er – excuse me, Boehner’s lack of a spine makes HIM cry!!
Here we go again, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Boehner is getting real good at that. Makes one wonder which party he really represents. Is he a closet democrat?
Oh well, the can has been kicked into February.
Nice, wordy description of what happened last week. It boils down to this – the tax cutting Republicans left DC with a tax increase set for the majority of working Americans to take place starting on 1/1/12. The president succeeded in a major smack-down on them, especially Boehner.
I wonder if these yahoos will stop working for Grover Norquist and actually work for the people who elected.
8: Considering Republicans would be happy to dismantle Social Security altogether, that’s not surprising.
Kevin, place provide your evidence for the claim that Republicans would be happy to dismantle Social Security. And while you’re at it, please explain how Obama plans to make up for the revenue lost to the popular program but the tax holiday he pushed.
And please identify the tax increase set for the majority of working Americans–and show how Republicans back said increase and Democrats do not.
Thanks!
Oh, I’m sorry, liar Kevin; turns out your Baracky lied, and he actually did raise taxes on working people.
Under the terms negotiated by Congress, the law also includes a new “recapture” provision, which applies only to those employees who receive more than $18,350 in wages during the two-month period (the Social Security wage base for 2012 is $110,100, and $18,350 represents two months of the full-year amount). This provision imposes an additional income tax on these higher-income employees in an amount equal to 2% of the amount of wages they receive during the two-month period in excess of $18,350 (and not greater than $110,100).
So again, your Baracky demonstrated that he hates people who work for a living and wants to jack their taxes immensely so that they can pay for adult babies like you to sit around on your ass all day.